<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>nuclear family by orphan_account</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23062585">nuclear family</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account'>orphan_account</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Metal Gear, Metal Gear Solid</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Established Relationship, Family Dynamics, Family Member Death, Father-Daughter Relationship, Found Family, Gen, M/M, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Not Canon Compliant, Olga's POV, Timeskip, also olga is alive while raiden rescues sunny but dies shortly after, no old snake. he is healthy and living and vibing, snake and otacon are fathers: the fic, sunny's pov</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 07:33:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,714</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23062585</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sunny is smart- too smart, maybe. It doesn't take her long to notice that she's missing something in this perfect life, and she decides to ask a question everyone has been dodging.</p><p>"Who's my mom?"</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Otacon/Solid Snake</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>80</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>nuclear family</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>When Olga sees her, she feels like she’s falling into an endless pit, both gaining everything and losing it in the same few seconds that she caught a glimpse of her. Raiden is bloody and beat but his hands are so gentle over her sleeping baby. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Her baby.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Olga.” Raiden walks over to her, stumbling a bit, clearly exhausted but strong enough to make the delivery. “I…” He comes to her in the dark, hidden between alleyways so no one would see them, so no one could see her. It was safer this way, and the baby's face shone under dim city lights.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I know.” Olga’s eyes fill with tears. She is shaking, but inside she is so calm. “Can I…?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Raiden doesn’t reply but hands her the sleeping child, and Olga weeps.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Her hair is shimmery blonde just like her mother’s. She looks nothing like her father and she’s an almost splitting image of Olga, which makes it harder to not simply run away with her and never look back. She is soft, perfect, and sleeping soundly. Olga almost wants to wake her up, but she decides it’s better that she doesn’t get to see her mother. It would only make this harder.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“My baby…” Her voice is gentle, a tone she’d only heard from her mother when she herself was a child. “You’re beautiful.” She cradles her close to her chest, quiet while she cries. “Do you have any idea how much Mother loves you?” She doesn’t respond, but Olga knows the answer.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Raiden is watching perhaps awkwardly, but Olga doesn’t care. She is with her child for just a few moments, and everything hurts and yet loves so much within her. She gently kisses the baby’s forehead, watching it stir in its sleep as if it could feel the gesture of affection.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Be a good girl for Raiden, won’t you? Don’t scream or yell, be quiet and strong. For Mother.” Olga realizes for a few seconds that the baby is never going to receive her thick Russian accent from her mother, and she’s somewhat sad yet thankful for that. She’d be her own person, her own everything, separate from the harsh mercenary life Olga and her father had led. She could have a good life, with good parents, with a family. Olga just couldn’t be a part of it. “Raiden…”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yes?” His voice is soft, and Olga remembers when he was just a stupid boy following orders from a simulated government. He’s grown older now, stronger, mature at least. She feels happy in a way that Raiden could be the one to rescue her, to show her a life that Olga couldn’t.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Promise me you’ll leave her in good hands. Please.” Olga is no longer crying, but absolutely everything is falling apart around her. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I promise.” Raiden is not a liar, and Olga walks towards him to put the baby in his arms.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“My darling, Mother will always love you. Always.” She backs away from the child, fists balled up at her sides. “Be swift.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Raiden nods and doesn’t say another word, and the baby is gone just as fast as it came into her arms.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hey, Dad?” Sunny picks at her burnt yolk, slicing through the rubbery egg with a knife. “Who’s my mom?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“W-What?” It seems weird, calling him Dad now when for so long he was just Otacon or Hal to her. However, it comes naturally; after she researched what family meant on every corner of the internet, it seemed to make sense. For as long as she could remember, Dad was always there. He even had photos of her when she was a baby, sitting in an industrial sink while Father washed her hair with a measuring cup. And while she loves Father to death, all children have mothers. It just so happened she had not one but two Dads, and it was becoming apparent to her that her family wasn’t super conventional.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You know. Everyone has a mom. Remember when you told me about grandma? That I look just like her?” Sunny watches as Dad’s face contorts. He’s an awful liar (but so is she) and he adjusts his glasses, looking from side to side as if someone were watching. He sighs and Sunny leans in, eager to hear an answer.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Well, yes…” Dad coughs. “Everyone has a mother. You’re right, Sunny. But you know that Snake and I, well,” Sunny forgets that Dad still calls Father by codename, which seems silly now that he’s retired. “You’re old enough to know about families. We’re your parents, so…”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“So?” Sunny blinks. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You know Raiden, yes?” Sunny nods enthusiastically. Raiden is like her elder brother in her heart, even if he tries to act detached and cool around her fathers. “He gave you to us. In a little blanket, actually. All babies come that way.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sunny furrows her brows. “I know, you’ve told me. But my mother-“</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m getting to that.” Dad was awful at explaining. He took forever just to make a point, but after years of helping Father (who took so very long to understand anything), that made sense. “Raiden gave you to us. You were such a cute baby, it was hard to decline!” Dad laughs a little. “Did you know that when you were little, you would make the funniest faces-“</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Daaad.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Okay, okay. Remember when Snake leaves sometimes for a mission, and we help him out? Well, a few years ago, he met this woman.” Dad’s cheerful expression falls a bit. “She was tough to beat, you know. An enemy at the time, but an ally later…” His voice fades out like the ending of a song and he pauses. “Her name was Olga.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Olga…” Sunny says the name for the first time, never having heard anything like it before. “What was she like?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“She was a good woman, Sunny.” Dad stalls a bit, eyes darting to his food. “Now, eat your eggs, they’re going to get cold.” He takes a sip of his water and focuses on his horribly cooked breakfast, and Sunny doesn’t realize at the time that it would be the first and last time her dad mentioned Olga. And she didn’t even get to ask if she was alive.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Father was a little bit more helpful. Sunny was a little older, around 10 now, and Father never danced around a subject like Dad did. Sunny asked him while they watched an old movie, one about aliens and technology that she forgot the name of.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hey, Father…” Sunny begins, staring at him from across the living room. “What was your mom like?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“My mom?” He scratches his beard, grunting a bit. “What about her?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What was she like?” Sunny asks again, placing her chin over the pillow she was holding. “You never talk about your family like Dad does.” That was true. Dad would always remind her how much she resembled Strangelove, how she had Auntie Emma’s intuition; Sunny would never tell her dad this, but he seemed lonely, like all of his family piled up and left. Except for her and Father, of course, and that was enough.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re my family, Sunny.” His voice is as gruff as ever, but it’s sweet, even if he’s evading the question.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Well, I know that, but-“</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I never had a mother.” Father finishes before Sunny could reiterate her question. “I grew up in a lot of different families. All over the country.” Sunny knew that, at least. “I met my ‘mother’ a while ago, when you were still little, but…”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“But?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Turns out she wasn’t even my real mom.” He stops for a bit, as if trying to figure out how to word his next sentence. “It’s… complicated. But I never met my real mom, in a sense, so I never had one.” He stops there, and the conversation ends.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sunny gets quiet and lets the movie play in the background. A character shoots at an alien, gun held in a clearly incorrect way (she could sense Father’s annoyance even if he didn’t show it). The effects are cheesy and cheap, but they do well for what it is. She stares at her father intently.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I never met Olga, so she isn’t my mom either?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Who told you about…?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Dad did. I asked.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Ah.” He gives a half chuckle half grunt. “Makes sense. But no, you have a mom; you two met, but you were too young to remember her. Different from me.” He runs his hand through his hair. It has a few gray hairs here and there, he’s getting older. “Olga was interesting. Looks just like you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Really?” Sunny doesn’t know how to feel about that. “Why did she… give me to Raiden?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s difficult, but she had a job that could kill her. She wanted to put you in good hands.” Father scoffs. “But Raiden is hardly good hands, he could barely take care of himself back then, so he…”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Gave me to you.” He nodded.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah.” Father was bad at conversation, but not so awful like Dad was. “But she’s not any less of your mother for that, Sunny. She loved you, very much. It was hard for her to let you go. Remember that.” Sunny sits with that information for a while. She lets it sit like a soup in her head, swirling around alphabet letters into words around the name Olga. After a bit, she got the courage to ask her Father another question.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Can people have two dads and a mom?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sure they can. I’m your dad, aren’t I? And Otacon is, too.” They </span>
  <em>
    <span>both </span>
  </em>
  <span>still call each other by codename. Even through his cheesiness, though, Father spoke with a bit of pride, like he couldn’t be a happier man.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah.” Sunny smiles. Father didn’t like to talk about family, but it felt nice to hear him say he was her father so proudly. “I know.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That’s my girl.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The movie plays and Sunny lets it drown out her senses, thinking about everything yet nothing. Maybe her question got her more questions than answers, but that was okay, because at least she knew something for certain now. A child with two fathers and a mother she had never met was a happy one, at least.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I wrote this in 20 minutes. As a warm up, but then I got too invested. L.<br/>I hope you liked this. Special thanks to my friend Sera for proofreading.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>